studies on
the dynamics of civilization

The
City of God, Science, Man

The
City of God

As I stated in the
introduction, the "City of God" is an ancient idea. It was
introduced in the form of a four-square structure that demands a high
degree of discipline in the scientific ordering of concepts that are
critical for civilization, such as for individual development, scientific
and technological development, and for advanced spiritual development that
opens up a the horizon to a new world that on the primitive level of
thinking cannot even be recognized to exist.

The
foursquare structure can be seen in terms of four columns of
concepts that together, in an upward oriented manner, function as
development streams, each pertaining to an area that is critical to
civilization. The columns themselves need to be seen as progressive
towards ever-higher concepts of advanced forms of freedom and
power in living.
The man who had first presented the idea, named it in essence the
"City of God," and suggested that all pioneers would bring
their "glory and honour into it."

Dynamic action from
the top

The concept of the
foursquare city as a model for perception was developed in
a period of the Earth's history when certain astrophysical
factors where more strongly expressed. The factors are of a type
that appears to have a powerful effect on cognitive and spiritual
development. It has been recognized that the great cultural and scientific
advances in civilization have originated in these
exceptional periods, so that a connection appears to exist. The two videos
below explore this potential astrophysical connection.

The coinciding of
great cultural developments, such as the development of written languages,
and later the Golden Renaissance, suggests that the amazing cognitive
development of humanity itself, which made us specifically human, may be the result of
the high cosmic-ray flux that occurs during ice ages. Cosmic-rays induce
an effect into the biological system that appears to aid the
complex neurological processes. It may be for this reason that the dawn
of humanity did not occur until the 'modern' ice age epoch occurred. This
current ice age epoch appears to be the only ice age epoch in the last 450 million
years in which the Sun goes inactive with a resulting large increase in
cosmic-ray flux-density. If this was the case for the dawn of humanity,
the start of the next ice age promises to give our
civilization a tremendous boost in human development. In this sense, help
may indeed come
from on high with the potential to pull up the entire human landscape to
higher levels of humanity. And more than that, this upwards-motivating
effect may be itself but an expression of the self-developing intention of
the universe, which is constantly developing.

This does not mean
that our own footsteps in scientific development that break us out of the box
of small-minded thinking, has no great effect on the human landscape. To the contrary,
these steps do have a tremendous additional effect. The various factors
that affect the development of our humanity appear to go
hand-in-hand.

What we call
civilization appears to be the outcome of effects at four different
levels.

The Top Level

The top-level, that
represents the principle or all-encompassing INTENTION for universal
development, may correspondingly be termed, for the lack of a better word
in language, "THE DIVINE." One might also call the motivating
force at this level the "divine Spirit. "

The Second Level

At the level below
the divine, we are concerned with the expression of it, the expression of
the Spirit of development, the expression of the divine Spirit, in the
course of which humanity came to be. The second level therefore represents
a SPIRITUAL process in which physical factors play a role that give the
high-level intention its expression. One might call this level,
correspondingly, the level of the EXPRESSION of Spirit, the SPIRITUAL
domain.

We can see this
domain as the expression of the intention of the universe to be
forever developing itself as a fundamental principle.

The Third Level

With the "City
of God" concept unfolding within this multifaceted higher-level
context, John the Revelator may well be justified in saying that the
'city' of concepts that he was working with, reflects the universe. It came from God.
It is a scientific idea that motivates us to become more spiritual
ourselves, in our perception and action. Spiritual values are being
recognized in this context by a process of REFLECTION. One might call this
spiritual motivation, in which scientific development takes place in the search for
what is truth, the MORAL domain.

As my
afore-mentioned study of this
background indicates, America's spiritual pioneer of the late 1800s and early 1900s,
Mary Baker Eddy, grew up in an environment where one of the exceptional
astrophysical factors was stronger. But she didn't just sit back and
enjoyed the ride. Instead of merely 'riding the train' she moved forward on it with a
tremendous initiative of her own, for her self-development in which
science war brought into the picture as a power-tool for her
self-development.

In the course of her
resulting progressive
movement, she came to recognize the value of what the ancient pioneer had placed before
humanity as the "City of God" concept for scientific ordering
and discipline. Subsequently, she did what the ancient pioneer
had suggested would happen. She brought all of her works into the 'city.' She did this in the
most extensive manner possible. She placed her entire life-work into
it, not just a single aspect of it. She built everything on it, building on this
foundation.

Thus, after 44 years of her working in this field, every major element
that she has worked with and has created for the advance of scientific mental healing, stands
today as an element of that "City of God" that by her work had
grown
immensely in dimension and significance. The image below
illustrates to some degree how richly encompassing her contribution to the "City of God" became. The terms themselves are specific to
her work.

Mary
Baker Eddy never actually used the term "City of God." She used
a more obscure term to refer to it, as evidently no one was 'alive' enough
in her time to deal with spiritual and divine concepts in a scientific
manner.

She used the term "key of David" instead
to refer to the "holy city." This term is
contained in a quote from the Book of Revelation where the "City of
God" is introduced. And as, if to assure that in later years scholars
of her work would recognize the foundation that she has built on, she used
that quote twice as a header in her textbook, Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures. She used the term once to head up the second part
of the book, named Key to the Scriptures, and then again to head up the
Glossary of it that contains 144 definitions for spiritual concepts that
precisely populate the entire 'city' with 9 concepts per element.

The
measure 144 is referred to in Revelation as a measure of the 'city.' It is
as if Mary Baker Eddy was saying to society that in order for anything significant to
be achieved, an ordered, disciplined approach to scientific development
is essential. By utilizing this approach herself, her Church Manual, for
example, became far more than just a collection of bylaws, but became
developed as a
high-level scientific platform for the building of an advanced
civilization on. (see more at: Mary
Baker Eddy Christian Science)

It is interesting
to note that Mary Baker Eddy did not claim ownership of the foundation that she
placed all of her works on. In the spirit of John before her, she referred
to this foundation as "the city of our God."

At the present time extremely little of this
'city,' in terms of her contribution, is known. It is largely deemed not to exist for the simple reason that one cannot
see far enough from within the 'box' of regimented religiosity to behold
the scientific imperatives. Consequently, the scientific foundation that she has built on,
which had
made her the most successful scientific mental healer in history, together
with Christ Jesus, remains obscured to the present day. It remains
obscured, even while it stood right in the open
for all to see for more than 100 years already.

Nevertheless, though
being obscured, the high-level foundation that she has built on, remains
to be a highly valuable foundation for
establishing a richer and more secure foundation for civilization in our
time, which is applicable to every critical arena, including the Ice Age
Challenge, the greatest challenge in the history of civilization, which is
likewise deemed not to exist.

The Fourth Level

The fourth level
may be the most-critical level. It is the level of humanity's INTENTIONAL
PARTICIPATION in the dynamic processes by which it exists. This means
playing an active role in all the higher levels. Playing an active role in
the advance of civilization is extremely challenging.

It means that one
plays an active role in assuring that the Ice Age Challenge will be met in
a timely fashion to assure the continued existence of humanity, which may
otherwise not happen. It means that the truth be sought out in human
history and man, and be expressed in social, national, and global
relationships, and become reflected in deeds. It means that economics be
given a divine face, expressed in meeting the human need, as divine Love
actively expressed as universal love to one another. It also means that we
honour our own humanity as human beings as the active expression of the
divine Being.

Our benefit lies
in PARTICIPATION

Tragically, one
sees little
movement towards active participation happening on any of these fronts. The common
response is, NO: "leave me out of that," "I don't want to
participate," "let God master the Ice Age Challenge, that's not
my concern,"
"and who cares about the truth in history and in culture, especially that of other
people?"

On the economic
front, people laugh at the notion that divine Love be actively reflected in the world and be given universal expression
in meeting the
human need. People say, "I don't want to participate," "I
don't want to be a part of any of that." They say, "count me out, I
have a business to run," and so on, "let the poor die in the
gutter whose food I am burning in my automobile," "let them die
in the streets if they can't keep up with the housing inflation, and food
price inflation," "let them eat dirt, for all I care."

Tragically, the
refusal of society to participate in real economics expressed in meeting
the human need, has many faces. As for the Ice Age Challenge, people commit
their children to death, rather than acting to master the challenge.
That's the near universal response.

Most tragic, of
course, is the refusal by people to participate in the divine design of humanity, by
simply amputating what reflects this design, thereby becoming a self mutilated society, a circumcised society, a fascist society, a destructive society,
a looting society, even a war society, which it becomes to support its looting habit by force.

On the fourth level
society is trapped by its smallness in thinking, which is basically a
refusal to participate in the dynamics of the universe. In this trap the
destiny is collapse and extinction, such as by nuclear war.

The actual beauty
of the fourth level is that we do have the power as human
beings to break out of the numerous traps and become active participants at the
higher levels. This breakout is critical. Many cultural, scientific,
political, and religious efforts are indeed made towards gaining freedom from the
traps. To the degree to which some succeed, or get us closer to
succeeding, the horizon begins to look bright. And I am happy to note that
there is at last some significant movement beginning to happen on this
front.

I also found the
foursquare "City of God" concept useful in applying it to
the dimension of our modern 'landscape,' as shown below.

developing means:
soaring upwards
a bird soars upwards on its two wings